Which NHL teams improved the most this offseason?<\/a> article, with writer Dom Luszczyszyn having this to say about the Cats:<\/p>\n6. Florida Panthers<\/p>\n
Net Rating added: +8
In: Brady Tkachuk, Garnet Hathaway, Lars Eller, Radko Gudas, Jacob Markstrom, Akira Schmid
Out: Mackie Samoskevich, Evan Rodrigues, A.J. Greer, Jesper Boqvist, Jeff Petry, Sergei Bobrovsky, Daniil Tarasov<\/p>\n
Brady Tkachuk was one of the biggest marquee additions of the summer and there\u2019s no question the Panthers are a much better team because of it. Tkachuk immediately beefs up the team\u2019s top six and feels like a particularly perfect fit on a top line with Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart. Florida\u2019s top nine looks downright terrifying.<\/p>\n
In order to fit Tkachuk, though, the Panthers needed to make a lot of changes around the edges that mitigate some of the value added. The team\u2019s fourth line will have an identity and Evan Rodrigues or Mackie Samoskevich would\u2019ve been a waste there, but it is notably worse now.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Strike two more names from the list of pending arbitration hearings.<\/p>\n
Connor McMichael\u00a0and the\u00a0St. Louis Blues\u00a0avoided salary arbitration by agreeing to terms on a lengthy six-year, $40.5 million contract. The Blues acquired the 25-year-old McMichael from the\u00a0Washington Capitals\u00a0on June 23 in a trade that sent high-scoring winger Jordan Kyrou to the Capitals. St. Louis also received a 2026 first-round pick (Maddox Dagenais) and prospect center Milton Gastrin.<\/p>\n
The Montreal Canadiens and forward Kirby Dach avoided arbitration by agreeing to a one-year, $3.6 million contract. Dach, 25, is coming off another injury-riddled season that saw him appear in just 37 games and finish the campaign with eight goals and seven assists.<\/p>\n
Updated NHL arbitration hearing schedule<\/p>\n
Jamie Drysdale (Philadelphia) \u2013 July 20<\/p>\n
Jet Greaves (Columbus) \u2013 July 23<\/p>\n
Jason Robertson (Dallas) \u2013 July 25<\/p>\n
Cole Sillinger (Columbus) \u2013 July 27<\/p>\n
Ronan Seely (Carolina) \u2013 July 29<\/p>\n
Alex Jefferies (New York Islanders) \u2013 July 30<\/p>\n
Akira Schmid (Florida) \u2013 August 1<\/p>\n
The Carolina Hurricanes signed forward Viktor Neuchev to a one-year, two-way deal worth $850K. Carolina acquired Neuchev\u00a0from the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for defenseman Gavin Bayreuther on January 24. He put up 10 goals and 15 assists in 68 AHL games split between the Rochester Americans and Chicago Wolves.<\/p>\n
Goaltender Henrik Tikkanen inked a one-year, two-way deal worth $850K with the New York Islanders. Tikkanen. a seventh-round pick in 2020, went 17-9-1 in 29 games with Bridgeport Islanders, posting a 2.65 goals against average, .896 save percentage and one shutout in 2025-26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Florida Panthers will\u00a0open\u00a0the\u00a02026-27\u00a0regular season\u00a0with\u00a0a four-game road trip against the\u00a02026 Stanley Cup Champion\u00a0Carolina Hurricanes (September\u00a029),\u00a0up and coming San…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-343233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}